THE second debate between Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio showed that the choice for New Yorkers in the Senate race are between a left-liberal Democrat and a moderate Democrat who happens to be running as a Republican. Despite the efforts by both candidates to harp on their supposedly “sharp” differences, it was nearly impossible to discern any real distinction between the two, save perhaps on partial-birth abortion and school choice.

On issue after issue – from the current hostilities in the Middle East to the (yawn) air-transport problems in upstate – Lazio and Clinton parroted each other. She kept trying to tag him as an extremist conservative, but it would have been impossible for anybody listening to see him as such, given his statements of support for higher federal spending on education and Medicare.

The word he repeated like a mantra, 14 times (by my unofficial count) in an hour, was “effective” – and he defined effectiveness as an ability to work with Democrats.

True, Lazio has had his greatest legislative successes by building consensus with members of the opposing party. But while that argument may work for George W. Bush, who is making an implicit case that he will end the rancor in Washington by changing the way the White House relates to Congress, the point sounds more hollow when you’re talking about electing an individual senator, who is only one out of 100.

Indeed, the only affirmative case Lazio made for his Republican-ness was a strategic one – that it would benefit the state to have senators from both parties, especially with the likelihood that the Senate will remain in GOP hands. That’s a potent point, and New Yorkers ought to pay heed. But it didn’t play well for ex-Sen. Alfonse D’Amato in his losing battle against Democrat Chuck Schumer two years ago, and it probably won’t carry the day now.

Hillary was graceful and comfortable, in stark contrast to her demeanor in the first debate. WCBS’s Marcia Kramer opened up by asking her a question that was totally out of bounds: Why, Kramer said viewers wanted to know, did Mrs. Clinton stay with her husband? The first lady answered in a fashion even this Hillary-hater found remarkably mannerly. “The choices I’ve made in my life are right for me,” she said, then linked that “choice” with her pro-choice agenda.

Asking Mrs. Clinton about the “vast right-wing conspiracy” remark, as Tim Russert did in the first debate, was entirely justifiable: She had chosen in that case to step into the middle of a major political scandal and provide her husband with political protection. But fascinating though the state of her marriage may be, it really is a private matter and has no place in a debate because it has no bearing on what she might do as a senator – no matter whether the answer helps or hurts her.

Hillary did engage in a bit of Gore-ism right before our eyes, though. On the issue of the campaign-finance deal struck between her campaign and Lazio’s, she said, “The Lazio campaign violated the agreement” by running an ad partially funded by the Republican National Committee and then quoted a New York Times editorial.

“It’s an issue of character and trust,” she said. Lazio fiercely rebutted her charge; then, bizarrely, she denied she had said what she had just said: “The criticism of your grasping for loopholes came from the New York Times, not from me.”

It was hard to watch this debate without wondering what might have been had Rudy Giuliani not dropped out. Both Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio are bereft of ideas, passion and enthusiasm, and the race is bereft of excitement. Instead, New Yorkers are faced with a choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledee.E-mail: podhoretz@nypost.com